Author: resnickcenterblog

Are “Superfoods” Really the Superheroes of the Food World? 

by Melissa Deng*

If someone offered you a choice between a regular food and a “superfood,” which one would you pick?  Would your decision change if the superfood cost more?  Maybe you would be more inclined to buy it because it seems like the healthier choice.  I know I have grappled with that dilemma with microgreens––young seedlings of various vegetables and other plants, including broccoli and kale.  

Even just a few years ago, I only knew of microgreens as that extra sprinkle on a sandwich, or a purely aesthetic touch adorning the infamous avocado toasts when they were all the rage.  But about a year ago, I began seeing more on various social media platforms about microgreens  being the next “superfood,” a term which invokes the elevation of microgreens into a higher echelon of food.  That got me interested, and microgreens are now always the star of my grocery list.  It seems like I’m not the only one.  A 2023 study noted that “in recent years, the demand of microgreens has increased due to their nutritional as well as phytochemical components,” which is reflected in the fact that microgreens are now often sold out when I go to the grocery store.  

Continue reading “Are “Superfoods” Really the Superheroes of the Food World? “ →

SNAP Policy Updates – Resnick Center + LAFPC Weekly Updates

[This post is cross-posted from the Los Angeles Food Policy Council blog.]

by Daniel Schettini*

Lawsuit Against USDA Over SNAP Restrictions

Date: March 11, 2026

On Wednesday, 5 SNAP recipients sued the USDA and the Agriculture Secretary in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, challenging the approval of five state SNAP waivers. They claim that the USDA violated the APA and exceeded the authority of the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008. Specifically, they argue that the approval of the waivers were “arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and were not in accordance with the law.”

Impact: The waivers being sued over, as detailed in a later section of this update, allow states to bar participants from using benefits on soda, energy drinks, candy, and other desserts as a move towards implementing the MAHA agenda. Thus far, 22 states have been approved for waivers by the USDA. While the lawsuit is still pending, Plaintiff counsel believes that this is a clear violation of the APA at the very least because the USDA failed to provide notice and comment. This action is still very new though, and something that I, as well as you all, should definitely keep an eye on.

Links/Resources:

Bloomberg News – Court Dockets

USDA faces lawsuit challenging state SNAP waivers

Food Stamp Recipients Sue Over Bans on Sugary Drinks

Continue reading “SNAP Policy Updates – Resnick Center + LAFPC Weekly Updates” →

Yogurt To Be Kidding Me: The Cultured Crisis of Coconut “Yogurt”

By Melissa Deng*

Coconut Cult, Cocojune, Cocoyo –– lately, it feels like these names have taken center stage in the yogurt fridge of large retail grocery stores.  Coconut “yogurts” have been all the rage, fueled by social media buzz and their branding as a vegan alternative to traditional dairy yogurt.   Typically sitting alongside other yogurt competitors in the dairy fridge, Cocoyo touts itself as a “raw coconut yogurt” with “200 billion probiotics.”  A quick search for Coconut Cult on TikTok reveals videos from proclaimed dieticians and ordinary food influencers claiming that in order to reap the full benefits, you can only eat one spoonful of its multi-serve jar a day.  Some content creators lay out other “rules” as follows: don’t you dare use a metal spoon, lest you invoke the wrath of the live cultured probiotics; don’t double-dip (a maxim on its website that appears on some jars); the list goes on.

Continue reading “Yogurt To Be Kidding Me: The Cultured Crisis of Coconut “Yogurt”” →

Safe to Eat? States vs. Feds in the Food Dye Debate

by Candace Yamanishi*

There is a shifting sentiment against the use of synthetic food dyes in the US food supply. As citizen-led advocacy groups have been raising their voices about the health concerns of artificial food dyes, several states have introduced or passed legislation banning or limiting the use of certain synthetic food dyes in food products. These efforts reflect the growing concerns over links between artificial dyes (such as Red No. 3, Yellow No. 5, and others) and potential effects on children’s learning and attention, as well as possible risk of carcinogenic effects. These state-wide initiatives have now captured the attention of the federal government and the larger food industry as a whole. Since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) maintains nationwide regulatory authority over food additives, a crucial question emerges: can state bans and restrictions on FDA approved food dyes stand, or will they be preempted by federal law?

Continue reading “Safe to Eat? States vs. Feds in the Food Dye Debate” →

The intersection of pedagogy and practice: an interview with Duke Law Professor Allison Korn

By Lavanya Sathyamurthy*

In law school classrooms across the country, professors and students grapple with society’s most challenging issues and how to address them through the legal system. How can we ensure access to reproductive healthcare after the Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion inDobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization? How can we meet the needs of our unhoused population when several cities, including Los Angeles, have passed ordinances that ban camping on public property, criminalizing homeless encampments? Through these discussions, students are introduced to important concepts such as community lawyering, which encourages lawyers to work collaboratively with impacted communities, and cultural competency, which describes the ability to work effectively with people from different backgrounds. Theoretical discussions in seminars provide the basis for how students will eventually approach social justice issues in practice. However, the most fruitful learning opportunities arise at the intersection of pedagogy and practice, in clinical courses.

Clinical courses are a cornerstone of the law school curriculum. In the classroom, students learn both legal theories, such as abolition in the criminal context, and practical skills, such as client interviewing and legal research. In the field, they apply this knowledge to serve clients, taking on primary responsibility for every aspect of their case. Through these courses, students learn how to translate theory into practice to zealously advocate for their clients. Clinics also serve an important role in the community, offering assistance to and building relationships with local marginalized populations.

Continue reading “The intersection of pedagogy and practice: an interview with Duke Law Professor Allison Korn” →

Executive Director Roberts on Partnering with the FAO on its Constitution Exhibition

by Michael T. Roberts

This post is the first of two by Executive Director Roberts on the FAO’s constitutional framework.

The Resnick Center is honored to be a partner to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The FAO was established in 1945 when its Constitution was signed and ratified by nations meeting in Quebec, Canada.  It was created as part of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s broader efforts to advance the “Freedom from Want,” an aspiration he articulated in response to the catastrophic human suffering caused by hunger and malnutrition. The vision of an international organization grounded in governance principles was also central to the post-World War II global reordering.

In May, I was honored to attend the next phase of a Constitution Exhibition in Rome – a project that I helped create that celebrates and contextualizes the role of the FAO Constitution in shaping the organization’s operations and aspirations. The exhibition complements my ongoing research and writing on the development of FAO’s constitutional framework from 1943 to 1945, as well as its further development and subsequent application in global food governance through 1965.

Continue reading “Executive Director Roberts on Partnering with the FAO on its Constitution Exhibition” →

Regional spotlight: Food Equity in Pennsylvania

The following is a guest post by Mallory Hersh* about her work in food equity.

During the pandemic, I had more free time than expected, and began to cook to accommodate my father’s recently-diagnosed food allergies. A few successful dinners later, I was whipping up healthy treats and baked goods in my spare time and delivering them around the neighborhood. 

But as I became more involved in conversations about food–how to source organic ingredients; the best forums for recipe swaps–I became increasingly aware that not everyone had the same access that I did to the foods that I took for granted. In the U.S., more than 34 million people, including 9 million children, experience food insecurity, often lacking consistent access to nutritious meals. Looking to help make a difference, I got involved with my high school’s service club, specifically aiming to spend my time with local community fridges and food pantries. I was selected to be the liaison between my school and Weaver’s Way Community Fridge, a community fridge that was connected to a local grocery store in Ambler, Pennsylvania.

Continue reading “Regional spotlight: Food Equity in Pennsylvania” →

To Eat or Not to Eat: For Consumers in a City Without a Food Allergen Ordinance, The Choice Could Be Life or Death

by Melissa Deng*

For many of us without food allergies, we don’t think twice about choosing to dine at a restaurant or order take-out––often, the biggest concern is picking which restaurant you feel like eating at, what to order, and comparing costs.  But for individuals with food allergies, the choice between dining in and ordering out can mean life or death.  Even so, cities you might think are more “food allergy-friendly” like Los Angeles, which has a colloquial reputation for having a vibrant food scene, may not have an ordinance specifically governing food allergen training in restaurants––even while more than fifty percent of adults with food allergies and over forty percent of children with food allergies in the United States have experienced a severe food allergic reaction (of note is that emergency treatment for anaphylaxis resulting from a food allergic reaction increased by 377 percent between 2007 and 2016). 

What gives?  For starters, the restaurant industry is of course profit-driven, and restaurant associations have a significant impact on lobbying for or against legislation.  From an economic perspective, restaurant management might be wary of the increased costs an ordinance specifically mandating food allergen training would impose, compounded by the fact that the restaurant industry generally experiences high turnover (reportedly, there was a 28% average turnover rate for restaurants in LA last year).  From a legal perspective, restaurants might not want to face increased liability: with an ordinance that mandates training, plaintiffs can more easily make a prima facie case of negligence by showing that the restaurant’s conduct deviated from an established standard of care.  And from a psychological perspective, restaurant staff might have misconceptions about their role in preventing food allergic reactions (for example, believing that the onus falls solely on customers to order a dish that doesn’t have food allergens) and might not realize the potentially fatal consequences, such as anaphylaxis resulting from a food allergic reaction.   What this means is that consumers with food allergies are unfairly subjected to a burdensome and dangerous dining experience where each restaurant chooses which food allergen procedures to follow and to what degree. 

It is precisely this issue that drove us at the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy, in collaboration with a professor and clinical immunologist at UCLA, to begin collecting both hospital-based and anecdotal evidence on instances of food-related anaphylaxis in the city, and pursuing the task of proposing a food allergy ordinance in the City of Los Angeles that will mandate a separate food allergen training for all restaurant employees in the city.  In the beginning stages of the project, we sought to answer two underlying questions: how do restaurants communicate allergen information to their consumers; and are they effectively training their personnel in allergen disclosure for menu labeling or food handling?

Continue reading “To Eat or Not to Eat: For Consumers in a City Without a Food Allergen Ordinance, The Choice Could Be Life or Death” →

Introducing the Food, Race, and Equity Initiative, Part II

by Heliya Izadpanah and Lavanya Sathyamurthy*

This is Part II of a two-part post.

Why Start Here?

by Lavanya Sathyamurthy



UCLA, home to the Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy and the Critical Race Studies Program, is the perfect place to start a movement focused on infusing issues of equity into food law curricula. The Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy adopts a multi-faceted approach to legal research and scholarship, through courses, conferences, and academic collaboration. The Center offers various classes at the law school. Specifically, the ‘Food Law and Policy Seminar’ exposed me to a wide variety of approaches to food law. As my classmates presented on the right to food and food advertising to children, I realized that food law intersects with every area of law. Immediately, I wanted to connect food law with my background in critical race studies and, more specifically, my experiences as an Asian-American navigating the higher education food landscape. I wrote my paper about the importance of data disaggregation among racial groups within the Asian-American diaspora in crafting solutions to combat food insecurity at the University of California campuses.

Continue reading “Introducing the Food, Race, and Equity Initiative, Part II” →

Introducing the Food, Race, and Equity Initiative

by Heliya Izadpanah and Lavanya Sathyamurthy*

This is Part I of a two-part post.

Dreaming of Food Justice in Law

By Heliya Izadpanah

UCLA Law was my dream school. Like many law schools, it catered to my interests in human rights law and environmental law. But what made the decision to attend UCLA Law a no-brainer were two rare institutional assets–its groundbreaking Critical Race Studies program paired with one of the few Food Law programs then existing in the nation.

I was a passionate advocate for food systems justice. We all interact with food daily, yet its production and distribution are rarely observed in modern society. People often don’t know the conditions under which their food is produced or the legal machines maintaining these systems. But when it comes down to it, it’s virtually impossible to identify even a single food item that isn’t riddled with disparities of race, rights, and inequity. From growing food, to harvesting, processing, transportation, access, and health outcomes, every aspect of food systems is steeped in disparities of race, gender, wealth, status, and ability.

As a teenager, I was inspired by Black Power activists and other POC leaders steeped in food systems—Fannie Lou Hamer and the Freedom Farms Collective, Black Panthers like Erika Huggins who created the nation’s first free breakfast program, and Shirley Chisholm, a key architect of WIC and SNAP programs. Similarly, I looked up to the founding organizers of Farmworkers United—Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez—for their achievements in food production. Each of these leaders knew the power of food, revealing its power to either hold one in oppression or to act as a focal point for movement building, community power, sovereignty, and emancipation. I was eager to learn how to use law as a tool for food systems justice and get involved in the food law program.

Continue reading “Introducing the Food, Race, and Equity Initiative” →

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